The "Pilate" Ring from Herodium (Excavated by Gideon Foerster's expedition, 1st century AD). A copper-alloy sealing ring dug up at Herodium in 1968–69 and left largely unexamined until modern cleaning and photography in 2018 revealed a krater encircled by the Greek letters ΠΙΛΑΤΟ — "of Pilatus." Published in the Israel Exploration Journal 68:2 (2018). The name is rare in the region, so the ring plausibly belonged to someone in the prefect's administration — a subordinate official, a family member, or a freedman sealing goods and documents in his name — rather than to Pontius Pilate himself. Compare the Pilate Stone from Caesarea, which is the direct contemporary inscription naming him.